Well yes, they are. And you are contributing to many a woman’s death, on a daily basis, all for your love of money.

Stop trying to kill my sisters. Or my daughter, for that matter.

What if you, instead, chose to publish an un-airbrushed, average looking lady on your cover? Might that young pre-teen you’re selling to have not chosen to go on a 500-calorie a day diet? Maybe, maybe not. Even if you’re not the direct cause, you’re part of the equation.

And when the women who don’t kill themselves via starvation give up on attaining that perfect ideal, they swing the other way. They start binging, because they just as well might give up and “get fat because there’s no hope for me anyway.” You may have heard of an epidemic called “obesity.” You play a part in that.

They buy into your bullshit because you’ve inundated them with false truths since the moment they were born. Society’s values do a number on them too – “sweet, cute, Daddy’s little girl.” Pushed down by the patriarchy as soon as they can breathe air.

Oh, and stop trying to kill our mothers.

The other day, I heard a husband joke about giving his wife 6 months post-partum to appear as if she never had a baby. Behind the joking that made me want to stick a needle in my eye – there is truth. A million of your articles have been dedicated to women pretending as if they never took part in assisting the human race in surviving. Makes sense.

Keeping women insecure earns a lot of money for you. How do you sleep at night? How do you live with yourself?

Either way, it’s got to stop. You make my new-mother friend feel like she should weigh less, you make my daughter the subject of weight stereotypes, and you make me feel like my genetic spider veins are little spindles of evil on my pasty-white, untanned-and-therefore-unappealing skin.

STOP.

(Another Piece of Cake realizes there are healthy ad campaigns out there, and applauds them! Another Piece of Cake also realizes men are hit hard by the media too, but Another Piece of Cake only writes about women because she’s, well…a woman.)

So this lady’s argument is that there’s this common theme today of saying “real women” are only size 14, with curves, and that thin or healthy women get shit on in regards to being “real”. If you scroll down, she tells you that she was one of the overweight women in the second set of pics, and then she became a bodybuilder. Can I tell you something? I agree with ONE of her points. And that is:

There has been a backlash against slender people since the body-acceptance movement. It’s true. I bet most naturally-tiny people have felt discriminated against at times, with the boatloads of body acceptance size 14 memes floating around the internet. The truth is, all women who don’t have botox and don’t photoshop their pics have “real” bodies.

But I don’t agree with the rest of the article. And here’s why.

1. One thing that bothers me is the name-calling. Lady, how ’bout you don’t shame people by telling them they have “shitty” eating habits.

2. She’s using her story in the wrong way. This gal apparently lost like 50 lbs or so. OK, good for you, I was overweight as a kid too and lost it (albeit through unhealthy ways.) Just because I am society’s standard of “normal” doesn’t mean you see me taking the “real women” movement personally. I’m confident enough to know I have a real body, a body that is just as real as those size 14-ers. It’s like a white person crying because black people have their own equality organizations.

3. I’m sorry, but if you’re a bodybuilder, I’m guessing you use extreme measures to maintain your appearance.

4. WHAT ABOUT DEPRESSION? This lady makes losing weight/getting healthy seem supremely easy. And you know what? It is, for some. But others have to battle co-existing illness like depression and anxiety which compound the ability to lose it. You don’t have a choice when you have depression; it’s a disease and you have symptoms that prevent you from making choices.

5. And oh yeah, there’s class status. Not everyone is white and middle class and is able to shop at Whole Foods!

6. And lastly, God. Lady, I am guessing when people say “God gave me this body”, they mean their genetics/biology. And guess what? That does have an impact. I’m never going to be Anna Kendrick-sized, but I’m also not ever going to be Geena Davis sized. Science does, in fact, happen!

Bottom line: I just hate that women like this get 47,000 likes on an article of this quality, which is basically a shot to get money and publicity through emotional manipulation. And my little blog just plods along…albeit happily…

Happy Monday! I’m gonna take a break from my “media watchdog” status and post something from the media that is BODY POSITIVE – or at least, I think so. My fabulous friend Liz let me know about the My Body Gallery, a site that is dedicated to portraying an accurate depiction of what REAL women look like. The coolest part, in my opinion, is the place where you can type in your height and weight and see pictures of other real women. For the women I spoke to, this was a wakeup call – as in, “Hey I look better than I thought!” Why? Because often we view ourselves more negatively than we do others. However this could be a trigger for some – so you have been warned.

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My mother, who is compassionate to a fault and takes care of all living things, even the insects, complains when I don’t tolerate family gossiping about me because she is more committed to order than justice. She wishes I would try harder with people who have told me I never should have been a mother. […]